It’s time once again to vote for your favorite gear from Canon that was announced in 2017. It wasn’t a standout year of new cameras and lenses from Canon, but we did get some good stuff. You can also vote for what you’re hoping for most from Canon in 2018. Voting closes on December 17, Read more…

Keith over at Northlight Images has completed his extensive review of the Irix Firefly 15mm f/2.4 lens. We seem to have an abundance of fast ultrawide lenses to choose from now. Canon, Sigma, Rokinon, Zeiss and now IRIX all offer competent lenses at different price points.

The Firefly version of this lens has a lower build quality than the Irix Blackstone 15mm f/2.4, which Keith touches on.

From Northlight

Optical performance is crisp and with good detail once you stop down a bit. My rough and ready testing suggests that on my 5Ds, f/6.3 or 7.1 give the best overall performance. That said if it’s a central subject the f/2.4 setting restricts DOF enough to soften the background for closer subjects. The amount of coma at the widest aperture may be an annoyance for astro photography, but it’s on a par with many other wide lenses I’ve looked at.

If you’re not used to it, then manual focus definitely will take some getting used to, but after a while you rarely need to give it too much thought. Modern DSLR viewfinder focus screens are pretty poor for manual focus, so even with a focus confirm indication, your distance estimating skills will improve too. Read the full review

Here is a Kickstarter campaign we thought you’d like, it’s for a pretty cool universal lens cap solution. This lens cap will fit every lens with a diameter between 60mm and 150mm, so that will cover most non supertelphoto lenses, as well as protecting pretty much every lens mount.

Not only will it protect the glass on either side of the lens, it’s also good protection from drops, as the rubber from the universal lens cap will give you some added protection.

Beyond drop protection, these caps will give you good protection from dust, dirt, water and pretty much anything else you may subject your lens to.

From KUVRD:

OUR MISSION: To Eliminate Photographer’s Anxieties.

At some point, we lose lens caps and worry about the protection of our lenses. The Universal Lens Cap (ULC for short) is the best way to cover and protect your camera lenses. Period.

It’s designed to fit every camera lens. Now, you can travel stress free knowing you won’t loose your lens cap, it won’t fall off, and you can go wherever and however you desire knowing you have the lens protection you need against the elements.

Today we’re proud to release updates to the entire Lightroom CC ecosystem, including for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and the web, as well as updates to Lightroom Classic CC and Adobe Camera Raw. We’ve added support for new cameras and lenses, and added some great new features.

Auto has been completely reworked to create better results, every time. Using an advanced neural network powered by Adobe Sensei, our artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning platform, the new Auto Settings creates a better photo by analyzing your photo and comparing to tens of thousands of professionally edited photos to create a beautiful, pleasing image. The new Auto is available ecosystem wide, including in Lightroom CC, Lightroom CC for iOS, Lightroom CC for Android, Lightroom CC on the web, Lightroom Classic, and Adobe Camera Raw (ACR). Read more…

Lensrentals.com has posted a comparison between the EF 85mm f/1.4L IS, EF 85mm f/1.2L and the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 Art. This comparison is not their usual scientific endeavour using OLAF, this is a bit more of a real world comparison by looking at images with our own eyes.

The Canon 85mm f1.2L II is the standard and is really middle of the road in this comparison. It’s a great lens with that dreamy bokeh but is the most expensive and is slow to focus. The Canon 85mm f1.4L IS performed amazingly with everything I threw at it. It’s sharper than the 1.2, faster, and has image stabilization but is still pretty expensive. The budget Sigma 85mm f1.4 Art lens is sharp and quick but is really heavy. My new choice to keep in my camera bag for a wedding is definitely going to be the new Canon 85mm f1.4L IS for the image stabilization alone. Read the full comparison